At a meeting of Group of Seven (G7) environment ministers, the first since President Donald Trump announced the U.S. exit from the Paris Agreement, the United States refused to sign a pledge that calls the global climate accord the “irreversible” global tool to address climate change. In a communique issued Monday, the U.S. position was distinguished in a footnote: “The United States will continue to engage with key international partners in a manner that is consistent with our domestic priorities, preserving both a strong economy and a healthy environment.”
In the communique, ministers representing Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the European Union reaffirmed their “strong commitment to the swift and effective implementation of the Paris Agreement,” but U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt, who departed the two-day meeting in Bologna, Italy, meeting early, refused to sign sections related to climate change, multilateral development banks and support for implementation of climate finance pledges. He did join the other ministers in committing to a 2030 agenda for sustainable development, sustainable finance and resource efficiency.
In a statement on the G7 meeting, the EPA announced that the United States “stands firm” on its decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement and that it has “reset the conversation about climate change” to reflect new priorities and the “expectations of the American people.” It included this quote from Pruitt: “We are resetting the dialogue to say Paris is not the only way forward to making progress. Today’s action of reaching consensus makes clear that the Paris Agreement is not the only mechanism by which environmental stewardship can be demonstrated.”
At the meeting’s opening session, Pruitt told delegates that the United States wanted to continue making efforts to combat climate change and that he wished to engage with the United Nations Climate Change secretariat.
Italian Environment Minister Gian Luca Galletti said a dialogue had been kept open to determine whether there were conditions for Washington to reenter the Paris accord. “But one thing is clear,” he said, “the accord is irreversible, non-negotiable and the only instrument for fighting climate change.”
McClatchy reported that the G7 country pushing hardest to maintain international momentum to address global warming is Germany, which hosts this year’s annual climate summit in November. Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks met last week with California Governor Jerry Brown to demonstrate that Germany is ready to work with individual U.S. states on the issue.
Hendricks and Brown—who last week signed green energy agreements with two Chinese cities—issued a joint statement on climate change in which they said “the withdrawal of the U.S. from the Paris Agreement underscores the important role that non-state actors, and particularly subnational actors, play in achieving the overall objective and goals of that agreement.”
The divide between the United States and its G7 partners on climate action was highlighted last week by Hendricks’s fact checks of Trump’s recent statements about the Paris deal and by President Emmanuel Macron’s invitation to U.S. climate researchers to move to France.
Clean Power Plan Goes to OMB for Review; Methane Emissions Standards on Hold
Last week the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) advanced President Donald Trump’s efforts to rescind or revise the Clean Power Plan—which seeks a 32 percent cut in the power sector’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2030—by sending a review of the rule to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for analysis (subscription).
The OMB review is the final step before the EPA can release its proposal for public comments. Although the nature of the proposal remains unclear, a full repeal is expected to be the Trump administration’s goal.
Underlying the Clean Power Plan is a 2009 EPA determination that greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles should be regulated. The Obama administration argued that the determination, known as the endangerment finding, applied to stationary sources such as power plants as well to mobile sources. EPA head Scott Pruitt could reverse that interpretation to pull the plug on power plant regulation.
But a more likely strategy, ClimateWire reported, is that Pruitt will contend that the agency went beyond its purview in setting carbon reduction goals by looking at what the power system as a whole could achieve instead of focusing solely on improvements at coal plants (subscription). That is, the agency could be focusing on a legal argument rather than attempting to fight the science behind the rule.
A D.C. Circuit temporarily froze a case brought against the rule by some states and industry groups (subscription). It is now considering whether to keep proceedings on hold or to close the case.
Also on hold: the Obama administration’s oil and gas industry methane emissions standards (subscription). The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Tuesday it would propose a two-year stay of those standards while it reconsiders them. Pruitt signed the notice submitting the two-year stay to the Federal Register on Monday.
The move would extend the 90-day administrative stay, announced May 31, of the 2016 New Source Performance Standards for the oil and gas industry, which require companies to install leak detection devices and capture leaking emissions (subscription). The EPA also proposed a separate three-month stay to cover any time gap between the end of the 90-day stay and the beginning of the 2-year stay. Both new stays are subject to a 30-day comment period.
Study on Climate Change Put on Ice by Climate Change
Warming temperatures have resulted in dangerous maritime conditions off north Newfoundland, preventing climate scientists from traveling to their study area and forcing their transport vessel, the Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Amundsen, to help free fishing boats and other ships hemmed in by ice traveling unusually far south from the high Arctic. David Barber, the expedition’s chief scientist, noted the irony of the conditions that caused cancellation of part of his team’s climate change study.
“I have been in the Arctic for 35 years and this is one of the most incredible experiences I have ever had,” he said Monday. “Normally these conditions aren’t so bad. This is climate change fully in action—affecting our ability to make use of marine resources and transport things.”
Barber pointed out that warming loosens ice, which can travel long distances on ocean currents.
“It’s very much a climate-change driven phenomenon,” said Barber. “When you reduce the extent of the ice and reduce the thickness of it, it becomes more mobile.” And he suggested that phenomenon offered a valuable lesson about climate change to the Canadian government.
“What happens in the Arctic doesn’t stay there. It comes south,” he said. “We’re simply ill-prepared.”
Canadian researchers and their international colleagues have been monitoring the impacts of climate change and resource development on Arctic marine and coastal ecosystems and northern communities since 2003.